I seek guidance on the peculiar position i find myself due to wickedness of SCB Cards. Below is the time-line of events as they unfolded:

1: I took SCB Card in ~2008 and have been a vivid(25K+) user of the same till end of 2011

2: I have opted for eMail statements but i observed that those statements were infrequesnt in terms of deluvery to my mail-box post around fag-end of 2011

3: I called their customer care and inform about the same. i missed my payment due dates a few times in th mean time. they applied some charges due to that. some of those charges got reversed and some did not by i made my overall outstanding payment and thought its not a good idea using SCB card when they are not notifying me and applying charges (Financial +interest)

4: I got a call from SCB in begining of 2012 due to my inactive status on the card they promised that they would be punctual in the quest of sending me the statements timely and requested me to start using again

5: I had affinity towards their card and started using it again. However after a few months they again started skipping their statements and i skipped my payments as well.

6: a few months later (Aug’2012) they vcalled me up and ask for the payment which included ~7K of financial and interest charges. this time i refused to pay the amount and asked them reversal of the interest and financial charges. for last ~10 months we are talking in circles (Customer Car > nodak officer > collection agents (local) > Collection agents (org)) with no respite. Finally they offered me SETTLEMENT on my card (Not the full and final closure)

7: Now as we all understand that setllement would come as a negative event on my CIBIL score and thus affect me adversely. i never had credit (money) related problem and the only reason why i thought i should not paid the money with interst and inaice charges was because I believed (which i still do) that it was banks’ fault that I skipped my payments and they should not charge me for that. Now they have increased the charges to ~100% of initial transaction amount. I am fed up with talking to thse folks (~10 months of consistent follow-ups aith outstanding amount being increased every month is like a horror story for any one)

8: please advise what next step could i take on this. is there a way that i can get justice on this and SCB folks understand that exploitaition of customers (Now they have start addressing me as defaulters) is certainly not a good biz practise ethically and LEGALLY.

Dear Abhishek, please read my reply in addition to dear manish’s Reply. Caredi Card is an unsecured loan to you. As you have taken a loan & used this, whose responsibility is there to inform you to pay? In case of home loan or car loan, do you get the info mly? the answer is NO. Please read the T&C of your Credit card (it’s common to all CC issuers in india) no matter you receive or not the account statement over physical mail or e-mail, the onus lies on you to pay in time & failing which ‘ll invite penalty charges as well as interest. The same thing happened to you.

My personal choice for you – please pay the full amount including al the interest & charges. Close the matter here & improve your own using style for CC. Take this event as a lesson for your future life.

I can understand your pain here and what situation are you in . There are two ways out of this

1. Supreme court has already said that incase of these kind of issues, if customer feels that its not their mistake and company is liable to not charge (which still needs to be proved) , you better first pay off the outstanding and clear the matters and then take the BADLA . File a complain to consumer court and then pursue the case. It would thing would mean you pay the charges right now , but atleast your CIBIL and credit rating does not take a hit for some time . The main problem here is that do not take this whole thing too far because later if you loose the case (for whatever reason) , you pay the much inflated number because you let the things run for so long .

Ideally you should have paid back the charges before 10 months itself when it was small (even if knew you dont deserve to pay) and then took the matter to court / ombudsman / comsumer court) .

It has been seen that if its really a bank fault and their service deficiancy , then consumer court awards the person compensation and directs the bank to do the right thing .

I suggest you take this route .

2. Still follow up with bank and finally go to ombudsman / consumer court , but then it would mean the charges would keep going up and up , You might win the case and wont have to pay anything , but what if you loose ?

I hope it helped

I personally feel , paying the bills should not be dependent on the mails you get from bank . I personally take that responsibility on myself of making sure I remind myself of the due date, log online to check what is the due and pay it off 5 days before the final date . You can blame every other person for this , but thats your personal way of thinking .